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Topic: News on Star Trek (Read 2514 times)

As the mostly-under-wraps progress on Star Trek multiplayer nears the 50% mark, I thought I'd share some of the new planned features for the game, as well as share what is done.

First off, the game's source code is being hosted privately, on my private web server. Access is via ssh. Anyone who wants to help with what's left can comment the topic and I'll PM you the URL and password to the repo.

Shields

I have slightly revised the way the shields work. Originally, it was intended that weapons have an energy damage rating and a solids damage rating, for damage to shields and ship, respectively.

The new system uses a payload rating for a weapon and a dispersal rating for a shield. The shield's current dispersal rating is equal to its max rating multiplied by its current percentage health. For example, imagine a weapon with a payload of 10 is fired at a shield with dispersal rating of 10, at 100%. The weapon impact damage is reduced as such 10 - (10 * 100%) which equals 0, and the shield health is reduced by 10. The next time the damage occurs at 10 - (10 * 90%), which equals 1. So 1 damage is dealt to the ship, and full 10 damage to the shields. **If a weapon's payload is less than the shield can block, no damage will be dealt, but shields will not gain health (sorry :p). If the weapon's payload exceeds the shield's blocking ability, even at 100%, the weapon will still break through.

You will have the ability to install more than one shield module onto your ship. One module will deplete its health, and then be replaced by another. In this case, however, as long as you have one other active shield module that is online, no damage will break through, even if the current module's percentage of health drops.

Sensors and Multi-targetting

The ability to install more than one weapon module will also enable you target your ship's weapons at either one target for combined damage, or to target each module at a different ship. Sensors will enable this by displaying three different targeting interfaces. Press a key to toggle between single target and spread target.

AI Borg Cubes

In keeping with the series, the server will control several Borg cubes with powerful weapons and shielding, designed to be attacked in groups, or fled from if you can run. They will be occasionally spawned in some distance away from an online player and will pursue that player or whatever player moves closest.

Stealth Tech

You can purchase (using points) and equip stealth tech modules. Stealth tech includes: (1) cloaking devices, a level 1 cloak automatically shuts off if you fire, a level 2 does not, and the cloak drops if the module looses health, (2) EMP pulses, which knocks all power systems (warp and impulse) offline for a time, which knocks all systems offline for just as long, (3) viruses, which damage a targeted ship. You may also emit a scrambling signal, which stops all sensors in a certain range from working. Lastly, you may scan another ship to gain info about where their systems are, their shield modulations, etc.

Currently done in the game is the opening menus, most of the CALCnet routines. Still to be done, rendering and the hub. I should have a beta done in a few months.

TL;DR, as always but I skimmed through some of it and I'm glad you are still planning gCn support (especially with the Spark Core-enabled gCn development and the possibility that one day any USB wifi dongle becomes useable) and more importantly that this project is still alive

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In case you are wondering where I went, I left Omni back in 2015 to form CodeWalrus due to various reasons explained back then, but I stopped calc dev in 2016 and am now mostly active on the CW Discord server at https://discord.gg/cuZcfcF

TL;DR, as always but I skimmed through some of it and I'm glad you are still planning gCn support (especially with the Spark Core-enabled gCn development and the possibility that one day any USB wifi dongle becomes useable) and more importantly that this project is still alive

It never quite died DJ. I had to stop work on it a few times bc of RL things, and lack of skill on some things, but with a git repo where I can let a few other people help, and a vastly improved knowledge of asm, I feel like this time will be it!!!

Aah ok good to hear. I was worried it might have been due to lack of support, but honestly I think the reason why not many people replied is because people are busy and the update posts are often too long for them under such circumstances. It's good that you also got help.

Logged

In case you are wondering where I went, I left Omni back in 2015 to form CodeWalrus due to various reasons explained back then, but I stopped calc dev in 2016 and am now mostly active on the CW Discord server at https://discord.gg/cuZcfcF

Aah ok good to hear. I was worried it might have been due to lack of support, but honestly I think the reason why not many people replied is because people are busy and the update posts are often too long for them under such circumstances. It's good that you also got help.

Haha! Yeah, I do tend to make long posts. I'll try to trim them in the future.And no, of course not. If anything, this game was well-supported. Perhaps it would've gotten a bit more if I actually finished projects :pAnd yeah, some help is always nice. As of now, I've got Deep Thought, Zeda, Sorunome, and a friend of Monkey0x9's in the repo. Anyone else who wants to help, even on just a routine, or sprites, is welcome to join. They'll just have to make an SSH key, email me the public one, and then I'll give them the origin address.

I should probably open-source certain of my projects like Reuben CSE and Super Walrii Land and put them on Github. My worry about SWL though is that the HP Prime community had issues with a developer taking people code than claiming it as their own, so I am a little worried about releasing HP PPL source code before finishing the game.

But Sometimes there are things I just can't figure out so I could maybe get help that way. The issue is I hate working on team projects where someone has specific tasks, but with Github if someone wants to help he can contribute sporadically if he wants and it doesn't compromise the future of the project.

Logged

In case you are wondering where I went, I left Omni back in 2015 to form CodeWalrus due to various reasons explained back then, but I stopped calc dev in 2016 and am now mostly active on the CW Discord server at https://discord.gg/cuZcfcF

I'm really curious to see how this turns out, but to be honest i think your Zelda project is much more feasible (or rather, less "daunting"). The gCn stuff all sounds really nice (though i've never used it and wouldn't know where to start), but personally i'd rather see some actual gameplay first (ie more than just game menus). I like how well you plan your projects, but at one point we've got to actually start coding Especially for these sorts of projects which we do as a hobby, it's easy to lose interest/motivation if we don't start actually coding and seeing results.

I'd love to help out, but i'm currently working on a little Pokémon clone with deeph over at yAronet. Though with Deep thought, Zeda, and Sorunome (and whoever the other person is) i'm sure you'll get stuff done, especially if they're actively contributing code. All the password and SSH stuff is beyond me, anyway

I don't believe I've put the details of the game's map on here yet so here it is..

You have a 2-byte sector coord and a 2-byte location coordinate for each of 3 axes, so we're talking a map size of 65,536 x 65,536 in each direction. When the map for the server generates, it does so in objects, so for instance, a star might have x,y,z sector and location coordinates for the center, a radius, and data about status effects it might have, like gravity, burn, etc. When map data is sent to the client, the server only sends you data on terrain that would be picked up on your long range sensors, which would be like a sector or two in each direction. So we're not overloading the calc with data, and the server can handle that data.

Just completed the speed changing routines, and most of the keypress detection.

Left to go:- system interfacing: GUIs to display ship info, status, power config, etc. - calculating new change in position per axis, given speed and vertical/horiz angles. - displaying map data on screen/sensors - the hub - and a few small other things

Anyone who has time and would like to contribute any amount of coding/sprites to this project may comment this topic or PM me. Project shared via git over ssh (pub key authentication).

Also, anyone willing to fork this project into a TI-84+ CSE version may also comment here and I'll let you into the repo as well.